Open Access News points out an article in USA Today that confronts the cold, hard truth (especially when it comes to science and engineering majors): textbooks are really expensive. Online textbooks offer an alternative, says the article, as they are free and available to download and print out. The push has come from grassroots groups and others, like Eric Frank, who used to work for Pearson Education and now plans to launch the first commercial open textbook publisher, Flat World Knowledge.
GTO hopes that students will remember to budget in that extra printer ink.